Tuning In: Dan Dierdorf concentrates on game, not his TV send-off

Dan Dierdorf doesn't want to be honored on the air after he analyzes his final NFL game for CBS when the Patriots host the Colts Saturday night. He hopes the focus remains on the game, not him.

"This is playoff football," Dierdorf said. "This is about the Colts and the Patriots. It's not about me. That would make me uncomfortable."

Dierdorf, 64, announced in November that this will be his final season after three decades as an NFL broadcaster. The travel puts too much strain on his bad back and artificial knees and hips. Dierdorf has worked NFL games longer than any other current game analyst on network television, and he's been associated with the league for the past 43 years, including 13 as a Hall of Fame offensive lineman for the St. Louis Cardinals.

"I'm a little melancholy," Dierdorf said during a conference call with the media this week. "It's hard to believe that this is my last game Saturday night."

Dierdorf thinks Bill Belichick has done his best coaching this season by continuing to win despite all the team's injuries.

"I mean this as a compliment," Dierdorf said, "but sometimes you look at them, and you say they're being held together with duct tape."

CBS lead analyst Phil Simms marvels that the Patriots manage to build depth despite new rules that limit practice time.

"Even the Bill Belichick haters in the media," Simms said, "they've even given up because to see what they've done this year after all those injuries and everything they've been faced with, to win their division, to be in this spot, that's saying something when you can shut certain people up."

Can the Patriots win another Super Bowl?

"Are they the most talented team in this playoff tournament?" Dierdorf asked. "Absolutely not. I think Phil said it best, 'Would you bet against them?' Well, only with your money."

Of course, the biggest storyline Saturday will be Tom Brady vs. Andrew Luck.

Dierdorf believes if NFL teams could choose one player to build around, they'd all pick Luck because of his ability and age (24), and Simms called Luck the physically strongest quarterback in the NFL, but both analysts remain big fans of Brady.

"Tom Brady at 36, his arm is as fresh and maybe stronger right now," Simms said, "than it was his first couple of years. In fact, I know it is."

Dierdorf admires Brady's leadership and competitive spirit and has no problem with him screaming at his rookie receivers on the sideline earlier this season.

"He would chew your leg off to get a win," Dierdorf said.

Before the shorter play clock and hurry-up offenses, Dierdorf had time to work a telestrator on multiple replays between plays. In recent years, he's had to make his points much quicker.

"I've always viewed it as kind of like guerrilla warfare," he said. "You've got a brief period of time to jump out from behind that tree, take your shot and jump back behind it."

The only time he can take his time is analyzing an instant replay during a coach's challenge.

"I like to think I have a perfect record from the booth," he said. "It's just sometimes the referee doesn't agree with me."

After Dierdorf's playing career, in which he was voted All-Pro six times, he spent a year on Cardinals radio, then joined CBS in 1985, but as a play-by-play announcer, not an analyst. Dierdorf recalled that he worked his first game with former Dallas and Washington tight end Jean Fugett, an Amherst College graduate, but couldn't remember who played or anything else about the game.

"Probably because there was nothing about it that was memorable," Dierdorf said, "including my performance."

The following year, Dierdorf switched to color commentary, and he's done it ever since. Dierdorf left CBS in 1987 to spend a dozen years on "Monday Night Football," then returned to CBS as the network's No. 2 NFL analyst.

Dierdorf said he didn't know why more offensive linemen don't become television analysts, but Simms, a former Super Bowl champion quarterback with the Giants, suggested that a lack of name recognition had a lot to do with it. Dierdorf then said Simms had the temperament to have been a good offensive guard.

"Well, unfortunately," Simms replied, "I have the rear end of one right now."

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus will be in Foxboro Saturday to see Dierdorf off. Dierdorf hopes to continue to work with the NFL in a job that doesn't require as much travel. McManus said CBS Sports Radio officials whom he spoke with this week are interested in Dierdorf.

"I tell everybody I'm retiring, I'm not expiring," Dierdorf said.

Contact Bill Doyle at wdoyle@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @billDoyle15.